Lean year continues for California home builders
Halfway through 2008, California home builders remain on track for one of their least productive years in decades, the California Building Industry said.
The builder trade group believes its members will start about 72,000 homes, condos and apartments this year. The California Construction Industry Research Board is only slightly more optimistic, forecasting about 77,600 residential starts.
That compares to 212,960 residential building permits in 2004 at the height of the state's housing boom. The CBIA estimates that one-third of the decline in home starts is in the Riverside-San Bernardino County area.
Statewide, home builders started 54.9 percent fewer single-family homes in June than the same time a year ago. The numbers were up 9 percent from May, however.
Sacramento-area builders started 2,142 single-family homes in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties the first half of 2008. That's down 49.5 percent from the first of 2007. The decline was especially steep in Yuba and Sutter counties, where 102 residential starts this year is down 83.5 percent from the same time last year.
That decline is the steepest among all of California's home building markets, according to CBIA statistics.
"The decline in single-family permits is greatest in those locales that are most distance from employment centers," said CBIA chief economist Alan Nevin, in a statement.